A message from Puakea Nogelmeier and Awaiaulu

July 26, 2012

‘Ike Ku’oko’a — Liberating Knowledge is a Hawaiian-newspaper initiative where volunteers were asked to transcribe 60,000 digital scans of Hawaiian-language newspapers (the largest native-language cache in the western world) into searchable typescript. With a goal to make the whole collection word searchable by July 31, 2012, and only 4 days remaining in the project, 14,156 of 60,000 pages have been completed. The Project’s Directors have issued a letter of thank to all of the dedicated and passionate volunteers!

“All of us at Awaiaulu and the ‘Ike Ku’oko’a newspaper initiative extend our sincere thanks to each one of our volunteers. Together we have helped to restore a library of historical Hawaiian writings, or at least built bridges for folks to find and use those writings.

Even if not everyone can read them yet, the access we have created through ‘Ike Ku’oko’a opens this important resource to people in every field, fluent or not, and is certain to bring about a watershed of information that we’ll be re-incorporating for generations. Perhaps more importantly, we, as a group of less than 3,000 active doers, have taught our modern world, in Hawai’i, the U.S. and across the globe, that this resource exists and is worthy of attention.

We’re excited about what we have all accomplished, but more excited about what this inspires, and what progress will be built on the foundation we’ve begun. Please keep in contact with what’s happening in the field of Hawaiian knowledge – if the success of ‘Ike Ku’oko’a is any indication, new opportunities may come up soon!”

ABOUT ME

My name is Heather and “I’m just a little Hawaiian and a homesick island girl.” I am a proud and thankful mom to the most beautiful boy; the daughter of an authentic Kodak hula girl and an old school local longboarder; a sunshine junkie, and a Titan. READ MORE...